


The Devil's Luck

by ProwlingThunder



Series: With the Devil's Own Luck [8]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Culture Shock, F/M, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Slow Burn, Swearing like a Sailor, Wasteland Survival, culture clash, military brats, the Apocalypse happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:17:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6063583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say the Devil will tempt you, but you've got to let him in. They don't tell you the Devil already has the keys to the door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Right Price

Walking into the Third Rail was a little like walking back in time, with just enough differences to make him miss it fiercely. It had a lot of what the natives called old-world charm, with neon lights and sweet music drifting up from the stairs. There was a bouncer in a suit standing on the landing, looking dour and generally unhappy.

He thought the Third Rail had been a subway, before the bombs dropped. Then it had probably been a deathtrap, a tomb for people who'd been inside. But now, it had been renovated and dressed up, and it felt nice. The nostalgic value alone was worth coming into Goodneighbor, being threatened at the gate, and watching the local Mayor tuck a knife between someone's ribs. None of which had been the reason he had come here, though wandering, rooting around for salvage and information....

He'd come here for the Memory Den, and he didn't want it.

He had even been able to see it from the street, but he had heard enough about the Memory Den that he really didn't want to go inside it without a shot of whiskey in his belly. Not that he wanted to go inside it at all, except that he had to. He had to know if it was real, and if it was..

He stepped through the landing, giving the bouncer a nod in greeting. The music enveloped him on his way down the stairs, sweet harmony. When he reached the bottom, he found himself standing directly across from the bar and a whole row of empty seats. A Mister Handy puttered around behind the bar, and he turned his way as Silas settled himself on one of the stools.

"What'll it be, Gov'ner?" The accent was British, all God Save The Queen. A flag was emblazoned on his chassis, and it was one he hadn't seen in... a long while. Silas had heard the European front was a mess of epic proportions, that Her Majesty was rallying the troops. He wondered how England had fared, if there even was a Queen, now.

"Just a whiskey and a clean glass."

"All my glasses are clean!"

"I'm sure. Ah-- leave the whole bottle, please."

"I'll just put it on your tab then." Silas thought about protesting it, honest, but he'd settle up later. The robot sat a glass in front of him, twisted the cap off the bottle, and that was that.

Silas poured it himself, grateful that the bartender had given him an actual glass instead of a dinky little shot glass, and filled it several fingers high. He twisted the cap back on safe keeping, then raised his glass in toast.

"To England."

The robot whirred at him. "England, you say?"

"England," Silas agreed. He considered the light through the glass, the way it stained and refracted through the liquor. "The mother of nations, and our ally to the end." He tipped the glass back, letting liquid courage burn all the way down his throat to settle in his belly.

The robot poured him another drink from the bottle before he could reach for it. He frowned a bit; he’d only intended the one glass, and then to take the whole bottle with him to find a place to hole up for the night. The hotel  _ probably _ had space, assuming it wasn’t too damaged. Considering how many neon lights the community had, the security of the walls? He was willing to bet that there was plenty of space.

If there wasn’t, he could always rent out their couch. Or the Third Rail’s back room. He’d seen the door, but only briefly; enough to know there was someone inside it already, relaxing. But if they had one, they probably had more. Dives like this always did.

The singer quieted and made her way to the bar, asking for water and calling the barkeep’s attention from him. Silas tipped his glass to him in thanks, apology, and farewell all together, turning to face the door a bit more properly. The woman was pretty enough, in a red dress that his Nora would have envied, but he wasn’t the sort to oogle and she wasn’t his type anyway.

The bartender wasn’t a drinking buddy, but at least he hadn’t been revealing cleavage.

The room was far more interesting anyway. Goodneighbor’s population didn’t seem to have a concept between  _ nightlife  _ and  _ daylife _ , and it looked like as long as someone had the caps, they could drink themselves into a stupor in here without anyone batting an eyelash. Which he guessed made sense, although it was still baffling how somehow, beer tops had turned into currency in a short matter of two hundred years.

Cash hadn’t mattered all that much during deployment, or even once he had gotten back. After Alaska, everything had been practically paid for. War bonds had been booming for the nation, and his commission and subsequent retirement had given them plenty of income. Not to mention Nora had  _ also _ retired, and brought her own money home. In Alaska? Cigarettes and condoms had been the currency of choice, with lube an after thought and hooch basically pennies.

Cigarettes were still plentiful, as was Nuka-Cola, but in all his scavenging of old houses and stores, Silas hadn’t even  _ seen _ a condom. He supposed that with no manufacturing plants left, latex and rubbers were the first thing to get used up.  _ Life _ hadn’t stopped just because the world had ended.

At least the cigarettes were still good. Other people were smoking in here, so he didn’t feel overly concerned when he fished a lighter out of his pocket. He was in the middle of trying to find a pack of smokes when two people alighted down the stairs and stopped in front of a bored looking man in the closest table. The men themselves didn’t look like anything special; they were just two guys, standing tall and walking proud in their military hats and green fatigues. He wouldn’t have paid any mind to them in Anchorage.

But this wasn’t Anchorage; it was Scollay Square. And he hadn’t seen anybody in military green since before he was frozen.

The sight of them was a shock to his system; he was both thrilled to see it, hopeful that the military had survived somehow… and angry, because they didn’t move quite right, and they were fools not to look up and spot him sitting there. Had they never been taught to evaluate a room  _ before _ narrowing their focus?

...perhaps that was unfair, Silas decided. Two hundred years had passed, and training could change quite a bit in that time. Still, he shoved his lighter back in his pocket, watching them nod and turn away. They fell into time with each other, and disappeared into the back room.

The pretty blond bombshell had apparently spotted him, and decided to move stools. He stood up before she could talk to him-- he wasn’t here to flirt, thank you kindly-- and threaded his way through the furniture to the backroom himself. Curiosity would eat him alive, and if he had learned nothing else from being an officer,  _ eavesdropping  _ was top of the list. 

He lingered outside the doorway, casting his attention into the room; three men-- correction, two men and a  _ kid _ , wow was that man young-- all of them in drab green, though the younger man’s coat and clothes did not a uniform make. Silas saw him look up at their entrance, though he was pretty sure he’d missed him standing back in favor of the approaching soldiers.

He leaned forward in his chair, legs braced to shove himself up and aside, every motion meant to belie confidence to anyone looking. Silas thought he very much wanted to believe it himself, but one against two from a prone position wasn’t ideal, and Silas could see the way his expression tightened, the ice in his expression the squads had held, when they had to head out to contend with invisible Chinese soldiers.

Not friends, then. But why would anybody fear a soldier--?

“Can't say I'm surprised to find you in a dump like this, MacCready.”

Nevermind. Silas already didn’t like him. The Third Rail maybe  _ wasn’t _ a top-class club, but it had a taste of home he had yet to find anywhere else. Calling it a dump was like calling the Empire State Building small; a filthy lie at the best of times and absolute slander at worst. They even had a pretty damned good singer.

Really, it was no surprise the young man was smiling at him, just shy of showing all his teeth. “I was wondering how long it would take your bloodhounds to track me down, Winlock. It’s been almost three months.. Don't tell me you're getting rusty.” Oh. Cheek. Silas liked that.

The laughter in MacCready’s voice flatlined though, going hard. It should have been a threat,  and it probably came out that way to soldier number one-- Witlock? But to him, it was the sound of a young man getting ready to kill or die, and not too dumb to realize he was outmatched. “Should we take this outside?”

They said, before the bombs, that America had a thing for Underdogs because they were one, always had been. People liked an underdog story, and they allied themselves with people who normally wouldn’t win purely for the climb to the top from the back of the pack. Certainly it was a trend Silas had seen a lot of growing up, and he  _ had _ perpetuated it.

He hated bullies. What they wanted… That wasn’t respect. Fear was a good motivator, but it was such a shoddy way to keep people.

“At attention!”

On the other hand, he was never going to be able to stop scaring misbehaving soldiers. There was a lot of self-gratification to see the pair straighten up. The salutes were shoddy, but he decided not to hold that against them too hard. A lot of things could change in two hundred years. Cue and point: the weather.

He stepped into the room easily, moving at a secured gait. It was not hard to pretend to be a superior officer, because he  _ was _ the superior officer. It wasn’t an act. 

Some officers could be all smiles and sweet words; could you do this, would you do that. Silas had grown up in a different school of leadership, and his voice was nothing but sharp and authoritative. He wanted  _ obedience _ , and he knew the tone to get it.

It took a bit of care not to look at MacCready. He looped his arms behind his back instead, surveyed the pair carefully. Let them keep saluting until he released them on their way. It wouldn’t be long; without knowing who the hell they were, he could only play the game a short time before they were apt to realize something was amiss. Well, more amiss than being too dumb to realize that backing their quarry into a corner was a bad idea.

No animal on the planet was more lethal than the one with nowhere else left to run.

“What seems to be the situation here?”

The story spilled forward like spoiled chili gone for by Dogmeat. MacCready was a member of the Gunners, but he had left and they had let him go, no hard feelings abounding. But he was still operating inside the territory, and this was a short relay to warn him that he needed to stop. Silas listened carefully, and MacCready, bless him, was silent through the whole damned affair.

“I’ll take care of it,” he decided at length. He had to salute them, loath as he was to do so. “You two are dismissed.”

_ They are the worst soldiers I have ever seen _ , he thought, watching them snap off and march to the stairs nary a wiser. He wondered how many superior officers they had, how many of them dressed in Vault-Tec blue and wore their uniform jackets wide open.

Dumb. Oh god. Was that really what the military had turned into? He didn’t want it.

He shook himself to drive away thoughts best left untended and turned to MacCready instead. Who stared back at him, now the first person to show some real intelligence. “You look like a man who could use a drink.”

His brow pinched, lips pulling down into a conflicted frown. “I could have handled that myself.”

Silas decided against correcting him. He probably could have, if he was quick and drew his side-arm first, but  _ probably _ was not a guarantee for a sure victory, and there had been absolutely no reason at all to leave it to chance.

He didn’t tell him he’d enjoyed it, the salutes. The Minutemen were picking it up, returning the motion to him, and it always helped to refocus him to the world. Although he left most of them to their own devices under Preston’s guidance, he’d gotten one hell of a promotion in a short amount of time, and he was  _ retired _ , now. But it was nice. It flattered his ego.

“Okay. I’ve got a bottle of whiskey out here though, and I can’t drink all of it on my own.” 

He probably could, if he set his mind to it. Pay the barkeep and take it to the hotel, hole himself up in his room. God knew he had enough reason to drink the whole thing.

But he had never drank like that before, and he didn’t want to now. So he extended the offer, only lingering long enough to watch MacCready’s beautiful blue eyes widen just so. Then he made his way back to find his seat still empty and his drink untouched. The blond had made her way back to the microphone. She was singing a lonely tune.

“Now you’ve done it,” the barkeep quipped. “Done gone and left Magnolia hanging on her lonesome.”   
“Sorry,” he apologized. “Had to go save a friend from himself.”

It was easier to say than  _ I don’t want to hurt again _ , because there was no context here for the robot to follow through with. And how did he explain that to someone who didn’t understand, who hadn’t  _ known _ them?

He reached out to twist the cap off the whiskey, filling his glass up to the brim. If robots had eyebrows, he imagined they’d be arched at impressive angles. As he did have plates,  _ those _ were arched instead, angled out from his body in radiating disapproval and sardonic curiosity that he had no desire at all to sate. 

He missed Codsworth. Codsworth would have taken the bottle from him already.

Codsworth wasn’t here to stop him, though, so he downed the glass and let heat settle in his belly like warm memories. Then he filled it halfway up again and twisted the cap back on.

“Well, now that you’re a paying customer, I suppose we can talk business.”

Silas opened his mouth to protest-- he were here to drink, after all, not  _ work _ \-- but the young gunman’s voice from the back room bubbled up from behind him. “Aww Charlie, I thought you gave me all the good stuff?”

Robots couldn’t _sniff_ _in disdain_ , but the bartender-- Charlie?-- made a good impression of it anyway. “I need someone _subtle_ , which you are _not_.”

“Breaking my heart.” An army green duster settled in, resting on the stool next to him. Silas was pleased to note he had his rifle, and he leaned it up against the bar next to him, resting his leg around it for security.

An old rifleman’s habit. He hid his smile in his whiskey glass.

Charlie turned back to him. “Someone would like to pay you to clear out a bug problem in Goodneighbor’s warehouses.”

He just wasn’t going to let this go, was he? Silas sipped at his whiskey, trying to decide what he wanted to say. MacCready bumped his toe into his stool, motioning to the bottle of hooch. “Still offering that drink?”

“We’ll take another glass, Charlie.” His guts twisted interestingly, saying the name.  _ Charlie _ had been  _ everybody _ , back in the Army. Especially nearing the lines, when using someone’s real name could be hazardous. “Tell me about this bug problem?”

“Some rather big roaches.” He waved a limb, telegraphing the  _ no big deal _ . “They’re proving rather difficult to root out.”

“..I suppose Goodneighbor doesn’t have it’s own exterminator?” They weren’t talking about  _ roaches _ , and they both knew it. But he could see MacCready out of the corner of his eye, leaning forward as Charlie wiped down a glass.  _ Interested _ .  There was light glittering in his eyes at the idea of money at the end of the rainbow. 

_ “He’s a merc still doing jobs in our territory, sir,” _ he recalled Winlock saying, nice and polite, clipped. A  _ report _ , and it had taken Silas so much effort not to bristle about the idea of soldiers with territory to hold. That wasn’t a thing they  _ did _ . But he could remember the words, and the way the two soldiers had bristled and postured before he had stepped in.

MacCready was trying to make a living in the way he knew how, and the Gunners were hassling him for it. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must be to have a whole mock-army against him. Everything about him insisted that maybe it hadn’t had a proper wash in weeks.

Except his gun, which was clean. He  _ knew _ how to take care of the most important parts.

“Quite right. And it must be done quietly, not by a familiar face.” Charlie narrowed his eyes on MacCready briefly, then he sat the glass down. Silas reached out and uncapped the bottle again, pouring the other man up glass to match him. “For you, I can pay out four hundred caps.”

MacCready whistled, low and somewhat unimpressed. “That’s too much for an infestation of radroaches.”

“Roaches don’t usually require  _ quiet  _ extermination,” Silas mused into his glass. He kept his blue eyes focused on Charlie. “Nobody would bat an eyelash against that.”

“Triggermen?” MacCready demanded. Silas had no idea what  _ Triggermen _ were, but hopefully they were people. “Who’s paying for this?”

Servos whirred in Charlie’s chassis. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the employers.”

Ah. Of course. “Always politics, isn’t it, Charlie?” He sipped his whiskey, because he  _ needed  _ it, but MacCready hadn’t even touched his yet. It’d be impolite to pour himself another glass before his guest even had a drink. “Alright. Let them know it’ll get done.”   
“It has to be done tonight,” Charlie warned.

Of course it did.

“It  _ will _ get done,” he repeated, watching the robot intently. Robots did not squirm, either, but Silas thought if he could, Charlie would be. “Four hundred?”

“Four hundred,” the robot agreed. “And not a cap more.”

“Alright. I’m going to enjoy my whiskey first though. Thirty caps should suffice for the bottle?” Charlie’s eyes went wide, which he took to mean  _ yes _ , and began fishing the tops out of his bag. He passed them across the counter and the robot swept them up easily, then puttered off to put them away.

MacCready was watching him again when he returned his attention to this side of the counter, looking a little wary and a little curious. But he had curled his fingers around the whiskey glass at last, which was a start. “Just pay everything flat out, huh?”

“When it’s worth it.” And the whiskey was, even if it was poor and watered down. It, like everything else in the Third Rail, had a taste of home. “So you look like a man who could use some caps. Want to earn some money?”

Ocean-blue narrowed on him. “Two-fifty.”

“Two-fifty if the job is clean and quiet, like the Mayor wants it to be. Two if it’s not.” Because it was the mayor, no doubt about that one. Wanting to see if he could handle himself and rid the town of a problem-- or maybe, rid  _ himself  _ of a problem-- both in one fell swoop. Silas felt a swell of pride as that suspicion flinted into something else; a little bit of surprise trickled in. 

“He didn’t say it was the mayor.”

“He didn’t say it  _ wasn’t _ ,” Silas countered. “So he may as well have anyway.”

He let MacCready chew on the idea for a minute, feeling somewhat sad that he had to deal with even the vaguest sort of politics in a bar. He had only meant to  _ drink _ . One shot, maybe two. Tuck the bottle into his bag and retreat, to go make sure the Memory Den was a real thing that really existed.

But he was mostly an honest man, and honestly, he would much rather deal with Goodneighbor’s infestation than face his own past. “So what can you tell me about our targets?”

The sniper made a vague sound, lifting his glass to down the whiskey in a rush. He took it like a champion; like he was used to drinking something stronger, sharper. The glass tapped the bar with a solid, quiet  _ clink _ .

Silas thought if he had grown up in this world, he probably would have drowned his liver by now.

“There’s only so many warehouses in Goodneighbor,” MacCready admitted, eyeing his glass like he was considering asking for a refill. “And I’m pretty sure they’re all used for triggermen. If the mayor is wanting to get rid of them, then it’s because they’re making a play for leadership. Which, let me tell you, that’s not actually something anybody here  _ wants _ . Maybe Goodneighbor’s not the  _ gleaming jewel of the Commonwealth _ , but everybody’s welcome here when they ain’t welcome nowhere else.”

There was no pain in his words, and Silas didn’t see any on his face, either. But he was sure that it existed buried beneath his skin, the same way his own hurt did.

Fuck, but he was too young for that kind of pain. He didn’t like the idea of it breeding in his chest, festering like it did in his own.

He reached out for the bottle and made to twist the cap off, but the young soldier shook his head in refusal. “We’ve got a job to do, right boss? I’m a great shot drunk too, I’ll admit, but you put me on the floor with liquor, I’m not going to be able to shoot the  _ ceiling _ for you.”

“Think it’d take more than a bottle between us to put us on the floor,” Silas pointed out, but he left it capped anyway, pulling his bag close so he could tuck away the hooch properly. He had to slip off the stool to do it, himself, rest the pack on the seat. “Charlie, how much was it for that bottle?”

“Ten caps,” Charlie told him, robotic voice firm as he moved back to this stretch of the bar.

MacCready made a sound of protest. “Now wait a minute--”

Ten caps-- ten  _ dollars _ for a bottle of cheap whiskey. Fucking hell, but getting drunk would be expensive, wouldn’t it? He shoved a hand into the depths of his pocket and came back up with a handful, counting out the cash by route of old habit and leaving the ten red tops in his empty glass. 

Charlie took it and floated away. MacCready turned to him looking outraged. “What the fu-- frick was that? He just ripped you off, and you let him?”

Maybe he was. He offered MacCready a smile nevertheless. “What can I say? I pay full price if it’s worth it.”

Wide-ocean blue narrowed on him. “Doesn’t look worth it to me. It’s just a bottle of whiskey.”

“It’s not the whiskey I was paying for, really. Name’s Silas King.” Ah, there it was; a flash of surprise in MacCready’s eyes, then the waters cooled. He held his hand out for the youth to shake, which he did, after just a moment. It was a good grip, strong and secure but not too firm.  _ Equals _ .

“Robert Joseph MacCready. Glad to meet you, boss.”

Silas committed the name to memory. He’d never known anybody by it before; it didn’t make his heart twinge and his chest ache in loss. That was good. That was.. it was good, because it didn’t tickle at his memories the way other people he’d met did. He could work with that. “I’m going to go have a smoke outside. When you’re ready, we’ll go see about removing Goodneighbor’s bug issue.”

“Now? Shi-- crap, you like to get things done and over with, don’t you?”

“No better time than the present, is there?”

MacCready snorted. “Yeah, sure. Let me show you where you can stow your pack real quick, boss.”

“It’s alright.” Silas had carried a heavier kit in the army, but there wasn’t much in the bag right now besides a half-empty bottle of whiskey and a change of clothes, his sleeping bag. More guns. Though it was mostly  _ ammo. _ He hoisted it up on his shoulder easily enough, watching the way the young man’s eyebrows pinched together. “I feel better with a weight against my back anyway.”

“..if you say so.”

He did.

MacCready followed him out of the Third Rail and showed him to the doors of each warehouse, so he didn’t get his smoke after all. 


	2. For the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep is for the dead and the dying, and those walking that line from one point to the next.

There was nothing to be done about the bodies. But weapons could be sold if he had to, given to the Minutemen if he didn’t. Bullets went the same way. There was a bunch of other miscellaneous things that he had refused to leave behind, as well.

He had told MacCready to collect  _ anything that can be useful, _ so he was only a little surprised when he found him ten minutes later stripping someone’s suit from their body. He looked up when he returned to the room, blue eyes sharp and calculating, his posture set a little unsure. Silas carefully did not look beyond him at the pile of clothes and the cluster of bodies beyond it. His pack was starting to get a little full, but he had been an Army boy, and it hardly weighed a thing. He had been to the shops before he had been to the bar.

“Let me know when you’re done. We’ll move on to the next one.”

If MacCready thought the clothing was useful…

Well, Silas wasn’t in the Army anymore. The dead didn’t need the clothes and people back home did. Besides, the gunman was entitled to half of the haul anyway. They would sort out whose was whose later, and if he wanted the clothing, he was welcome to it.

It was desperately late when they finished cleaning up after the pest problem.

He left MacCready up with the bouncer and made his way down to the bar. The singer, Magnolia, was still purring out songs despite the hour. The robot bartender sounded almost happy to see him.

“Well, if it isn’t the young soldier! Can I offer you a drink?”

“I’ll take a bottle of whiskey to go, if you would.” The small-talk was important. It held weight and measure, even if it was just a smoke-blind. Silas leaned against the bartop as Charlie whirred and went to fetch a brown bottle from its hide-away. “I had a long dance tonight and it’s about time for me to turn in.”

“Is that so, gov’ner? What a shame. It’s been awfully quiet here.” Charlie sat the bottle on the counter before him, still in it’s old packing crate. Silas considered it. Something red glinted in the bottom. More than a few. “Take this out for me on your way.” Not a question.

_ Here’s your payment.  _ Four hundred caps, and every penny of it would be there. Politicians paid their money squarely to their hired help, and  _ nobody _ cut a soldier’s check short.

He passed caps from his pocket back for the bottle. “Of course. You’re welcome to send for me some other time.”

“We’ll keep that in mind.”

Silas settled the crate under his arm, making his way back through the Third Rail and up the stairs again. MacCready pushed himself off the fence at his approach, but Common Sense was in abundance at this late hour, and he said nothing, just opened the door for them to make their departure.

They made their way to the Rexford Hotel to find the lobby devoid of people. His hired sniper caught his look with a crooked smile. “Come on, boss. Let me show you where you can drop your stuff.”

“You have a room here?” He didn’t know why he was surprised. It was the only hotel in town, and unless the young soldier had been living out of the Third Rail’s back room, of course he had to have a place to crash somewhere.

“Yeah, second floor.” They marched across mostly-clean carpet to the staircases. Silas let him lead, not too shy to follow or use the railing to help him keep his balance. They were both moving slower than he liked, loaded down with Basically Everything they could get their hands on. He honestly wasn’t sure if a single strip of clothing had been left in those warehouses, but anything not nailed down had ended up coming out with them.

Wasteland mobsters had a surprising number of weapons, ammo, and things he could use to make defenses and homes for his settlements. He was hoping they could get a chance to consolidate the haul, split it up and part it out. In the morning though, because he had been tired when he walked into Goodneighbor and he was more tired still.

“It’s not actually mine,” MacCready admitted. “But it’s kind of reserved for me.”

Like barracks. Silas hadn’t owned his room, but it had been  _ his room. _ He made a sound for affirmation so the other man didn’t think he wasn’t listening, but he had no words to drive the conversation himself.

MacCready’s quarters were at the end of the hallway. He had to unlock the door for them to enter, and then jimmy it a bit; the slab of wood didn’t quite fit in the frame, warped by time and weather. The inside was cool cream, the old carpet blue. Most of the furniture was wood, a dark mahogany to throw the room into some weird contrast. On it’s own, it could have been any room in the state. Didn’t even have doors for the closet and restroom anymore.

MacCready had apparently picked up interior decorating, though, because one open drawer in the dresser was honestly full of nothing but ammo pouches, and there was a whole row of ammo crates against one wall.

Silas nudged his crate near one corner and rested his kit next to it, building a wall he could rest beside. The amount of bullets was a comfort more than anything else. They were the sniper’s, of course; he wouldn’t presume they were going to share. But either he was well-supplied for that rifle, or he was digging in and preparing for the worst. Considering Goodneighbor was down about thirty people, it probably wasn’t a local problem.

“What now, boss?”

He blinked and lifted his attention from his confiscated corner. MacCready had dropped the duffle Silas had passed him on the floor next to the bed and was now watching him, waiting for an answer. “.. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to hold the wall up for about six hours. We can part the spoils in the morning after we’ve both caught some rack.“

“Sure thing.” There was a look in his eye like it might have been a  _ test,  _ because something relaxed and fled behind that blue gaze. MacCready didn’t salute him, thankfully, but he gave him a sharp nod and turned away. It was more than enough.

Silas turned his attention back to following his plan through. He eased himself down onto the floor, settling his elbows on his knees and his rifle between them, just like he had done back during Alaska, during the war. That's what the Commonwealth was, in the end, wasn't it? Just another war after all.

A war he was alone in this time, and his chest ached a bit with the knowledge.

He rested his head on his pack, considering the room as he did so. The corner wasn't the best escape route he could have planned, but that didn't matter. MacCready had clearly set this place up for when retreat wasn't an option anymore, and he was taking a huge leap of faith in letting him in here. He didn't know that he could have done it.

He wanted to say he was surprised when the sniper vanished on the other side of the bed, rifle laying flat on it and pointing at the door, but he really wasn't.

He dozed, walking on that fine line between full consciousness and blissful sleep, unable to truly let go and stop paying mind to the world. Nothing tugged him off the line one way or the other through the morning; the door stayed secured, and the few times he roused enough to survey the room properly, MacCready was still missing beyond the bed. He hadn’t gotten up either.

He let himself rest until sunshine began to spill in through the cracks in the window’s boards. Though he didn’t actually get  _ up _ even then. He was an interloper in another’s safe space, with absolutely no desire to test the caliber of the young soldier’s rifle himself. He remained tucked in his corner, going through the request lists he’d had made up for the different settlements.

A lot of it was going to have to be edited now. Not until after he made a visit to Goodneighbor’s shops, though, but the Triggermen seemed to have a decent measure of things. If he could mark some things off without having to pay for them, that’d be great.

“Do you even  _ sleep?” _

He glanced up, taking in the face of a man who hadn’t gotten nearly enough rest, and felt immediately bad. He should have just held up a wall in the lobby last night, left MacCready’s room as his own sanctuary. He hadn’t thought about that the night before though.

“Sometimes. When I need it.”

“Great. Sounds like you’re a fucking vampire.”

Silas blinked.

“That’s a new one for me,” he admitted slowly. Careful. Testing the waters. The rifleman was still on the other side of the mattress and box springs, separated from him by about ten feet. Which amounted to nothing at all, really. A shot from either of them would strike home with very little effort. A burst of muzzle fire,  _ pop, _ just that quick.

He didn’t think MacCready would shoot him. But he  _ was _ a stranger in the man’s safe space, and he might call him  _ boss _ but there was nothing trusting about him.

In his position, Silas couldn’t blame him. They had picked each other up in a bar.

But the wastelander’s fingers didn’t dip to the mattress. He reached up and ran a hand over his face, through his hair, like he was brushing off sleep. His other hand held his cap, brass bullets in the brim. He hadn’t really noticed that last night. He  _ had _ seen the ammo belts. They were full again, which only went to tell him that the man had a box of bullets down by his pallet.

It was smart. Safe. He approved.

MacCready still looked  _ exhausted _ though. And judging by the way his eyebrows were climbing, Silas’ words surprised him. “Man, boss, what rock have you been living under?”

_ A lot of them, _ he thought, shrugging. “I haven’t been in the area long,” he admitted. It didn’t feel like a lie, not really. He might have been frozen for two hundred years, but it still felt like he had only moved in last year. Though last year felt like a  _ long _ time ago, considering the things that had happened and the way the world had changed. All that he had lost; his wife, his lover, his son, his country.. Everybody. Everything.

He had gained things, too. It didn’t make it hurt less. Nothing eased hurt except time. Nothing cooled threads of anger, the need and thirst to set the world back to rights. But he wouldn’t waste the good things that had come his way, the burgeoning friendships and the people he had helped.

Like this one. 

“Yeah, that’s kind of obvious. Most people don’t wear Vault-Tec blue unless they’re looking to get shot. Anyway,” MacCready didn’t give him a chance to thread in a question there. Silas didn’t know what he would have asked. “What are you working on?”

“Shopping list. It can wait until we go through this. First thing’s first though,” Silas rested his Pipboy on the floor beside his knee, moving the crate with its lone bottle of hooch closer to him. “You’ve got to get paid an honest man’s wages. Two-fifty off the top.” It would be a lot of caps to sort out by hand, but just as Charlie had hired Silas for a job, Silas had hired MacCready. Part of being a good boss was making sure to treat the employees right.

Less like employees and more like people, who needed money to be able to eat but who also wanted money for frivolous things, even if that frivolous thing was a fancy steak on occasion.

The surprised look that bloomed on MacCready’s face didn’t last long, morphing quickly into calculating wariness, like he wasn’t quite sure which game was afoot yet. But he had his attention when he pulled the bottle of alcohol and dumped the crate on the floor between his spread thighs, started sorting out piles of twenty-five.

It  _ was _ better that it all get counted now, though, so he piled up MacCready’s share and pushed it toward him. His own went in a mason jar tucked away inside his rucksack.

There were more caps, of course. The Triggermen hadn’t been loaded, but they’d had a fair bit, and plenty of bottles of whiskey and Nuka-Cola. They have to divvy those up too. Consolidate everything, then part it all out. Sil started with the easy things first: stolen caps, ammo, guns. He wasn’t overly surprised when his companion deftly claimed all the .308s, poked through the weapons and mods they had found.

Silas did his damnedest not to focus on him too long. There were things to be done.

At some point he was forced to dig out a couple cans of beans from his kit, hunger pressing him to fill his belly. The Pipboy claimed it was edging closer to noon than was entirely acceptable on an empty stomach. MacCready, bless him, had claimed a spot of floor nearby and was helping him sort through the haul. He accepted both the offered can and spoon without a word, which meant they ate in comfortable silence.

The sniper didn’t want anything that was  _ junk, _ and didn’t see much point in hanging on to it. A lot of it needed to be stripped for carrying, which took a screwdriver as well as most the time they spent. Since he didn’t help, Silas regulated MacCready to sorting the guns out, stripping down what wasn’t usable for mods and pieces. The working guns he could take to the settlements. Parts he could scrap, melt down and reforge with a little work. Mods he could carry or sell. The clothes went the same way.

Silas ticked off what he could on his shopping lists, bundling up  _ settlement supplies _ in a different pile from  _ resources _ and  _ stuff to sell. _ That pile wasn’t the biggest, but it was mostly disproportionately chems. He didn’t need jet or psycho and he definitely wasn’t bringing them into any of his settlements. Chems were  _ unfortunately _ a good source of income, and he was pretty sure that some people used the chem stations to make them. It didn’t mean he had to facilitate their habits or make them any easier.

People used all sorts of things in war. Some of the chems weren’t as clean-cut as he would have like them to be, like mentats or buffout. A lot of the Commonwealth’s chems had been developed purely for the war effort. As much as he wanted to say the war was over, he hadn’t actually left his own, and he had woken up into another one.

What was the saying Artem had used? Old soldiers never go home?

_ Artem. _ God, he needed a drink. Silas wondered if Charlie had any vodka stocked in his bar. The Triggermen hadn’t had any for them to confiscate.

In the end, Silas had to fish another meal out of his kit for them; breakfast and lunch from cans. They ate in silence too, and then they went back to what they were doing. The work wasn’t hard, but it was boring and long, tedious. It still had to get done though, so like anything else he had ever done as a soldier, he did it. 

It was edging into the  _ late _ timeframe when they finally finished, dark outside the boards. Not a good time for traveling in the city, when ghouls could climb out of drainage sewers or from beneath parked cars. But it wasn’t so late that leaving everything in piles for the next day was a valid option.

MacCready watched him as he started on the individual piles, finally sorted, and began to pack them away in his bags. Out of this haul, some of the settlements were only getting two or three items, but some were getting decent chunks marked off their request lists. He made sure to pack careful, testing the weight of each bag as he filled them for maximum capacity. He used the crate for the sheet metal he’d taken off things, as well as the empty cans, using one of the shirts for a tarp to keep things from spilling. In other spots he stored pulled wires and small motors, jars of screws.

Technically he could have left the desk fans and their ilk together, then carried them that way. It wouldn’t change the weight. But it  _ would _ have been harder, their shapes bulkier when put together, and the size of the load mattered as much as anything else. He only had so many bags.

He stored weapons and munitions next, then the miscellaneous mods, the deconstructed pieces of weaponry that had been judged still usable but easier to carry separated. Stored the clothes.

By that point, it was too late to take the leftovers to the shops for caps. They shared another meal-- Silas dared to pull out a box of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes, splitting the treats with him. They had a few shots of whiskey, the night cap to top off the day. MacCready made his way back over to his pallet on the floor, and Silas again settled into his corner.

In the morning, he would go and offload what he could onto the shops here. Before he finally did what he’d come here to do in the first place. Likely not with several glasses of whiskey in him, but at least those would be at the ready when he was done.

And when he caught the bastard he was after, that would make all this hell more than worth it.


End file.
